Gold Spot Price Open: $1,372
Gold Spot Price Close: $1,355
Change in Gold Spot Price: -$17
Silver Spot Price Open: $21.32
Silver Spot Price Close: $20.84
Change in Silver Spot Price: -$0.48
Gold and silver spot values are down significantly on Tuesday for a second consecutive day. When all was said and done, gold lost about 17 dollars while silver declined by nearly 50 cents.
Profit-taking and chart consolidation from last week’s metals rally is still being felt today, and even though spot gold and silver are on their way downward, market analysts like Jim Wyckoff from Kitco are convinced that the gold bulls still have the near-term technical momentum.
Adding to the pressure being placed on spot values thanks to profit-taking is the seemingly calmer tensions throughout Ukraine and Russia. Today, Russian president Vladimir Putin announced that he has no plans of annexing any regions in Asia, despite the widely held belief making rounds this week. Putin’s remarks did well to ease the worries of some investors, as US equities shot up today.
Still, much of the world has a hard time taking Putin at his words and will wait and see what he does over the coming weeks as opposed to believing everything he had to say in his address to Russia’s parliament today. The crisis in Ukraine is still far from resolved and even though tensions have calmed down during the early stages of this week, there is no saying if things will remain this calm permanently.
Finally, the FOMC’s monthly policy meeting got underway today and is not expected to wrap up until sometime tomorrow afternoon. Despite much of the market agreeing as to what the outcome of this month’s meeting will be, investors are still paying close attention due to the fact that Janet Yellen will be participating in her first press conference as chairperson of the Federal Reserve. Currently, the market is expecting that the FOMC will reduce monthly bond-buying by another $10 billion.
Housing data released out of the US today was on the upbeat side, adding to the list of factors that are currently working against spot gold and silver.